John Mccain, A Thumbs-up Guy

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New Book Shows The Senator As A Healer, Straight-shooter

August 26, 1999|By DAVID DALEY; Courant Staff Writer

Robert Timberg's masterly book ``The Nightingale's Song'' tells the story of five famous Annapolis graduates -- Oliver North, James Webb, John Poindexter, Bud McFarlane and John McCain -- and how their experiences at the Naval Academy and in Vietnam shaped American politics during the Reagan years.

McCain, now a GOP senator from Arizona, might have the most lasting impact, as he challenges front-runner George W. Bush for the GOP presidential nomination. McCain's bid for the White House has inspired Timberg, himself an Annapolis grad and Vietnam veteran, to recast and update his McCain story as a separate biography, including the courageous details of how McCain survived his years as a POW and inflicted almost as much abuse on his tormenters as they did on him. ``John McCain: An American Odyssey'' (Touchstone, $13) is in stores now.

Timberg, on leave as deputy chief of the Baltimore Sun's Washington bureau, took a break from researching his next book -- looking at the transition from the '50s to the '60s through the story of a Brooklyn semi-pro football team -- to discuss McCain's bid for the White House. (Full disclosure: Timberg's son is a friend from grad school. He bought us dinner in Chapel Hill, N.C., when we graduated in 1994.)

Q: Let's start with speculation. Say McCain manages to win this election. What would it mean for the way we talk about Vietnam and American politics to have a president who didn't protest the war, like Clinton, or pull family strings for a safe assignment in the Reserves, as many prominent GOP politicians did?

``I think for a large group of people, specifically for Vietnam veterans and their families, there would be a sense of redemption. At the same time, we're now three decades removed from the Vietnam War. I think most Americans, including Vietnam veterans, are looking for the next president -- whether it's McCain, Al Gore or George W. Bush -- to produce on the job. But there's no question there would be an initial sense of `finally coming home.'''

Q: You write that Vietnam was the defining moment of McCain's life but that he has never been a prisoner of that experience. Your book, and also Michael Lewis' book ``Trail Fever,'' paints McCain has a healer on this issue, someone who doesn't let such a divisive issue get in the way of personal relationships.

``McCain has never done that. It's not in his nature. He came out of prison after 5 1/2 years, including 31 months in solitary, having endured beatings, torture and brutalization. Yet he essentially cleared North Vietnamese air space, landed at Clarke Air Force Base in the Philippines and was able to put that experience behind him.''

Q: His relationship with Clinton has been fascinating as well. When Clinton first spoke at the Vietnam War Memorial, McCain was very supportive when a lot of veterans were awfully angry.

``People tried to egg him into these statements, but he has never criticized Clinton on the draft issue. I remember him saying, `Look, the American people elected Bill Clinton president, and that's good enough for me.' He's criticized him sharply on some policy issues. But they've also worked together on recognition of Vietnam, on the Middle East. There's an interesting symbiotic relationship there.''

Q: One of the issues they broke on was Kosovo, where McCain strongly insisted that Clinton not rule out using American ground troops. Does his stance on Kosovo offer any hints as to how McCain would use American military power as commander-in-chief?

``The way he reacted to Kosovo seems to me somewhat indicative of how he would be likely to react as president. His statement was, `We are in it. Now we must win it.' Anybody who went through the Vietnam experience is very uncomfortable with half-steps, particularly when it involves the lives of American fighting men and women. McCain will always be sensitive to that. He views many things through the shadow of Vietnam. It's not something that controls him or will make him respond in predictable ways, but it's something he will always take account of.''

Q: Why is McCain so popular with the national press? Does his experience in Vietnam have something to do with that?

``McCain comes across as a straight-shooter. Ask him a straight question, you get a straight answer. He's also fun to be around. He's perhaps the funniest man I've ever met. He has great stories. He really is an authentic American hero, but he doesn't carry himself that way. He's extremely approachable. But people who cover national politics, certainly, know his story. I think some people ask themselves whether they could have stood up to that -- in particular his early months in captivity, when he was in really bad shape and thought without sophisticated medical attention he was likely to die. They offered to let him go home, but he followed the code and turned them down. That's something you can never take away from him. It has to cross your mind when you're talking to him. `What would I have done?'''